


To Be Available For You To See

by Thingsareswinging



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: And Sokka makes the tactical decision to become King of Romance, Comedy, F/M, in which Azula has a presentation planned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thingsareswinging/pseuds/Thingsareswinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula wants something. She has never been particularly good at self-denial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In which, rather than becoming a Brooding Avenger, Sokka actually sat down and explained Yue to Suki in the Serpent's Pass. Sokka and Suki therefore never hooked up. Everything else more or less stayed the same, though.
> 
> Takes place post-DOBS, but pre-finale.

The Kyoshi Warrior had proved more helpful than she probably intended, and had at least confirmed enough about him to distract him at the most crucial point of his invasion. All she had had to do was mention this ‘Yue’, and he had been pushed into a blinded rage at _just_ the right moment.

The memory of him, so deliciously furious, shoved against her close enough to reach out and touch, sent a happy shudder running through her.  
  
He was... _perfect_ . If he had been any sharper, she would have had to use more inelegant, and certainly less enjoyable, ways to hold his attention. Any duller, and he would certainly have killed her.  
  
He was undoubtedly dangerous. But that was fine! So was she.

* * *

"Mai. Head after him. Bring him in alive. And try not to damage him."

The wonderful thing about Mai, Azula knew, was that she wouldn't waste energy with annoying questions. Ty Lee would certainly have at least raised an eyebrow. Of the two of them, Mai was the one Azula could trust to be a professional.

* * *

  
Mai sloped into the clearing as Sokka bent double, chest heaving from exertion. His head snapped up at her approach, and in a flash drew the shiniest, most incredibly pretty thing Mai had ever seen in her life.  
  
If there was any question of even division of spoils, Mai decided with a sudden certainty, that sword was going to be _hers_. She'd figure out how swords worked eventually, she was sure.  
  
"Okay," she said, as his knuckles tightened on the hilt, "so we're both on the same page here, you're not going to win. But I've been told not to put too many holes in you, so how's about you hand over the sword and we take a walk." She considered promising that nothing terrible was going to happen, but the only bit of parenting her mother had ever managed to get around to was to teach her not to tell lies, and it seemed a shame to waste that.  
  
Sokka looked taken aback. "...You can _talk_?"

* * *

“So...” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her as she prodded him back to camp, distracting her from trying to get a feel for the heft of her newest favourite toy without him noticing the fact- “if you don't mind me asking, what's the deal here? Because I was all setting up for one of us not walking out of that clearing.”

Mai didn't bother to raise an eyebrow because he wasn't facing her, but she felt compelled to make a point. “You were more than ten paces away and I can throw a knife so hard when it hit you your mother would flinch.”

Something twitched in his shoulders, and he tried to cover it with an easy shrug. “I figured if I could get one hit in I could at least make sure you bled out or something. You've not seen space sword in action, have you? One time it went straight through a guy sideways without slowing down.”

Mai very nearly made a face. “I'm beginning to see why she likes you,” she said, slightly disgusted.

“...What?”

Mai weighed her options. On the one hand, warning Sokka about what was going to happen would probably count as helping him. On the other, he would probably start panicking, which might be funny. On the first again, he would probably panic in a really loud and annoying way. But back on the other, it was the least she could do since she was stealing his sword.

Actually the least she could do was nothing at all, but whatever.

“Azula _likes_ you. So I was asked to make sure there weren't too many holes in you.”

“... _Likes_?” he managed, after a second.

“In the way you're imagining, probably.”

There was a moment, where he appeared to consider this.

“I'm in so much trouble, aren't I?” he asked, his voice coming from somewhere far away.

Mai was, by dint of being the only other person in the world that had managed to become romantically entangled in the current crop of Fire Royalty, the only person who could answer his question to the full extent it deserved.

“Yep. Now get moving, I haven't got all day. Also you'll probably want a bath first.”

* * *

 

It was only once she had settled into her tent, assured at last that everything was ready, that Azula realised that she was nervous.

This was a perfectly reasonable reaction! Her plans, necessarily, hinged almost entirely on what he did. It was entirely acceptable to feel the flutterings of uncertainty now it was too late to consider that she might be making a mistake.

She absently ate a lychee, without really noticing.

It was at this moment that the tent flap twitched open and Sokka stumbled in, looking suspiciously like he'd been pushed.

Azula froze. There'd been a line, a plan of attack, a way to set the scene but she couldn't quite remember how she'd meant for it to go now she was looking at him.

There was something beautiful in the set of his shoulders, the guarded look in his eyes. As he glowered warily at her, she was struck by a fierce need to see him  _overrun_ , to have him bare his throat and close his eyes and  _offer_ -

She swallowed hard, and manufactured a small smile.

"Why don't you take a seat?"

* * *

 

Sokka liked to think of himself as a practical and rational guy, no matter what anyone said, and so had spent the entirety of his bathtime considering every single terrifying aspect of the fact that Princess Azula (the one with all the lightning that had ruined his day every single time she showed up) was apparently interested in him, and not in a totally normal and acceptable curse-that-handsome-water-tribesman-and-his-constant-foiling-of-my-villainous-plots kind of way.

The best-case scenario- that the girl that had stolen space sword was making this up to freak him out- had been tempting, but he'd never been that lucky before. So his increasingly worried imagination had conjured up a scenario that was, now he was here, in Azula's tent, sitting on a cushion and being offered a bowl of weird squishy fruits that smelled like soap, amazingly failing to materialise.

The conspicuous lack of chains, ropes, whips, burns, or crying was, at least, something. He guessed. But he wasn't ruling out the possibility that she was just lulling him into a false sense of security on the whips and chains front.

“So…” she began, and was it just him or did she seem… nervous? “That’s a nice… shirt.”

He couldn’t help glancing down at the stolen guard uniform he had pulled back on. It hadn’t exactly been something he’d picked out for its sartorial elegance.

“Thanks?”

“It looks good on you. It’s a nice colour,” Azula continued, doggedly. Sokka deliberately put a weird soapfruit in his mouth, just to avoid the possibility of responding. Unfortunately, this meant that she kept talking.

“Have you ever worn silks? You would look good in silk, I think. Dark colours, of course,” she continued, as Sokka chewed.

As she petered out into silence, he was suddenly struck by the realisation that this must have been what he’d looked like to Yue.

* * *

 

Everything seemed to be going well! Provided she adjusted her parameters so that ‘going well’ meant ‘he was sitting down and didn’t look like he was going to try and run’. Which was not what she had hoped for when she came up with this plan. It was time to change tactics.

She had two options: she could threaten him with something terrible unless he complied, or she could… be honest.

The second choice won out. Eventually.

* * *

 

She folded her arms, and cleared her throat, as he poured himself a cup of tea.

“I've invited you here,” she began, briskly, as Sokka valiantly resisted the urge to raise a quizzical eyebrow, “because I have a proposal. A proposition that I think both of us could stand to benefit from. I believe that you and I do not know each other as well as we should. We could benefit from each other's companionship, we could make each other _better_ than we are. I. Would. _Like_ it. If we spent some time. Together.”

When her speech was over, she bunched her fists and glowered defiantly at him, daring him to say _anything_.

He took a long sip of his tea.

Huh. Okay. Huh.

Right she was obviously crazy, but he felt it was probably a good idea to double check something first. He set his cup down, and raised one hand.

“Okay before we go any further can I just ask something? In the interests of nobody getting completely the wrong idea here and making embarrassing assumptions?”

Azula nodded, tight-lipped.

“Thanks. Okay when you say ‘spend some time together’, do you mean ‘spend some time together’, or ‘ _spend_ _some time_ _together_ ’?”

Azula blinked. Sokka sighed. He’d tried.

“I mean, do you mean,” he held up a hand, and entwined two fingers together (which was actually a completely obscene gesture among the Air Nomads now he remembered Aang mentioning it once, but off-topic) “...romantically?”

Azula _flushed,_  but otherwise her expression did not change. “...Yes.”

“Huh.  ...Huh.”

He picked up his cup, and took another long sip of his tea.

* * *

 

He was thinking about it! She could read his eyes and that was a clear expression of calculation, it had _worked_!

Of course, not that she had ever doubted. Naturally it had worked.

* * *

 

Sokka sipped his tea as slowly as he could. He had some thinking to do.

Okay. So. A lot going on here. Firstly: she was totally crazy. He’d already thought that, but nice to have it confirmed. Secondly: she was kind of talking like the war was already over? Which was just rude. Although from her point of view it probably was, seeing as Aang’s team had gone from ‘the entire armies of two countries invading the capital with a super secret one time weapon on their side’ to ‘five guys hiding in a cave.’ Anyway. Thirdly, though: he… didn’t think she was lying? If she was lying, he thought, she’d probably be a lot… smoother about it.

Fourthly… fourthly was the interesting one. Because he was beginning to have an idea.

What if he played along? Play it cool, keep her entertained, and maybe she’d calm down a little? Or at least be distracted from trying to put holes in all his friends. He could _definitely_ be distracting.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the better this idea sounded. He could _totally_ figure out how to be a Master Of Seduction. Which was convenient since, given how the gloomy girl had acted, it didn’t seem like he was getting space sword back any time soon.

He suddenly realised that he had been miming drinking from an empty cup for about a minute. He should probably stop that before she decided he was strange and changed her mind.

He set the cup aside with a deliberate click of china, and leaned forward, just a little.

“So,” he said, injecting his voice with what he was totally sure was Suave And Sexy Confidence, “what’ve you been up to recently?”

* * *

 

Azula had not expected this- but that was the point, wasn’t it? He’d always been more difficult to anticipate than the rest.

The conversation was meaningless, something to fill the air, but it gave her something to do while subtly edging towards him, moving closer until she could lay a hand on his bare arm.

He choked mid-sentence, and their eyes met.

Nine times out of ten, victory lay in preparation and anticipation. Now, though? Was the time for swift, decisive _action_. She leaned forward, back arching as she pushed up until their faces were inches apart, his breath hot on her lips. He seemed suddenly nervous, but that was why she was taking the initiative.

Their lips met, and the earth moved.

“Oh,” he said, as they broke apart. “Sounds like Toph’s arrived.”

Azula scowled. Of course.

* * *

 

Okay the exit was important here, he couldn’t just cut and run that’d be _rude_ , so-

“Look, I gotta go but it’d be nice to see you again? Y’know, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again, that seems to be a thing that keeps happening, so…”

Azula tilted her head. “...Sure.” She looked… lost. Like she wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next.

Aw, crap, he couldn’t leave it at that. Before he could figure out if it was a bad idea or not, he leaned over, and kissed her. Properly, this time.

* * *

 

He was everything she'd imagined- strong and insistent and _focused_ \- his large hand tracing the shape of her neck even as she bore him down to the floor, his breath hitched in his throat as her fingers carded through his hair, and he also tasted vaguely of soap for some reason.

He broke away when an errant blast of wind almost knocked the tent down, but he reiterated his offer to continue at a later date, before he vanished into the evening.

Well, she thought, as she adjusted her hair. That had gone more or less according to plan.


	2. Chapter 2

The airship descended through the morning mist, lumbering into the canyon.

Really, Azula thought, leaning lightly on the rail of the observation deck as the ruin sloughed into view, it wasn’t as though the Western Air Temple was _ hidden _ . Sozin had known precisely where to find it, and it was a sprawling city-temple nearly the size of the Caldera. It was unlikely to have moved anywhere in the past hundred years, except perhaps to the bottom of the cliff.

Still, she was fairly confident that this would be where the Avatar and his friends would have retreated to. Which meant that today would be a  _ very _ important day. Victory and utter disaster were both very much a possibility.

It was a good thing that she had planned everything out so carefully.

“Ladies,” she said, as Mai and Ty Lee materialised at her flanks, “time to get to work.”

* * *

 

Mai was beginning to resent the degree to which she was involved in Azula’s personal life. It wasn't just the fact that Azula, having finally managed to menace a boy into pretending to like her, was getting annoyingly comfortable talking to Mai about it (although it was also that, it was  _ definitely  _ also the fact that Azula was using Mai as a sounding board for all her ideas about what she was thinking of doing with, to, or at Sokka, if that could stop Mai would be grateful for at least an hour) but it also meant that Mai was apparently Official Boy-Wrangler, since Ty Lee was fundamentally untrustworthy whenever emotions were involved, and obviously Azula couldn’t go around trying to look like she was definitely trying to murder the Water Tribes boy, no, that would be far too annoying for  _ Azula _ to deal with.

Mai blinked as the boomerang came within an appreciable fraction of giving her a new haircut.

Right. Fighting.

* * *

 

Aang and Katara were prepping Appa, Zuko was trying to not get killed by Azula, and Toph and Miss Backflips were having a great time weakening the structural integrity of the courtyard. Which left Sokka to square off against Gloomy Girl, again. And she’d brought space sword, presumably to taunt him.

As she bore down on him, stolen blade in hand, he couldn’t help but think that this would be an incredibly dangerous situation if she wasn’t completely terrible with a sword.

“Seriously,” he complained, stepping out of the way of a wild swing, “get a teacher or give me space sword back, this is actually painful to watch. Please tell me that’s not actually your plan.”

The girl glowered at him, as though, for the first time in the fight, she actually felt some specific ill-will towards him. With a sudden snarl, she lunged, sword raised and point only wobbling a little bit, so when he rolled gracelessly to the side she stumbled and careened straight into the stone wall of the temple. The blade bit deep into the masonry, and sank halfway to the hilt.

After a few seconds of silence, it became increasingly obvious to Sokka that the girl wasn’t going to move. Maybe space sword was stuck?

He shifted, moving to get to his feet, before a blur of motion and a cloud of dust marked three daggers, neatly surrounding him in a friendly warning. The girl’s hand had shot out, apparently completely independently of the rest of her.

“It’s stuck,” she said, dully. “In a stone wall. A completely solid stone wall.”

“...Yeah,” Sokka said, not sure where she was going with this. “Space sword is amazing, I am aware, I did make it.”

“Does it normally do this? Because this is not usually how swords work. Maybe they don’t have swords in your awful country and so you weren’t aware that they weren’t supposed to win when they stabbed a wall so you made it  _ wrong _ or something but they don’t get this sharp and  _ I trimmed my nails with this thing!” _ She looked even paler than usual.

“Yeah you’ve got to be careful with that. I used to shave with my machete, had to drop  _ that _ habit. You really can’t get away with using space sword for personal hygiene.”

* * *

 

Zuko had been trying to keep half an eye on Mai while Azula tried to kill him. It wasn’t that he was scared of her (a little, and that was completely his fault, one more thing he should have handled better) it was just that… Sokka was a good friend and Mai was  _ Mai _ and if at all possible he’d feel better if neither of them killed the other and were they… they were  _ talking _ ?

He turned to get a better look, but Azula was suddenly between him and them, shaking her head performatively.

“You know, Zuko,” she said, abandoning the diminutive for once. “There’s nothing I can do for you any more.”

“What are you  _ talking _ about?” he snarled, because as long as she was talking she wasn’t  _ fighting _ , and that meant Aang and the sky bison were that much closer.

“The North Pole was a fiasco, Zuko, and father blamed you. And Zhao, of course, but the Admiral was dead and so beyond punishment. He ordered me to bring you back in  _ chains _ , Zuko, but I  _ fixed _ it! All you had to do was take the credit for Ba Sing Se, and everything would have been  _ sorted out _ . But this? There’s no coming back from this, Zuko. You betrayed the Fire Nation with the enemy at our _ door _ . You  _ attacked Father _ . The penalty for treason of your calibre is death. The only thing I can offer is to make it quick.”

Zuko bared his teeth. “Why are you  _ telling _ me this? Do you think I didn’t know?”

Azula shrugged. “I just wanted to be sure you knew exactly what you’d gotten yourself into.”

* * *

 

“Look,” Sokka tried, as Mai brandished space sword again, noticeably less comfortably this time, which was probably some kind of record since the first time she’d looked about as natural as Toph wearing shoes, “obviously the sword thing isn’t working out, but that’s okay! You’ve got the knife thing going for you! It’s a very strong look! So don’t feel like you have to compensate for anything by stealing other people’s weapons that they’ve worked really hard for and invested probably more of their personal development as a person in than they should-”

“Shut up. I’ll get this, you’ll see. I mean, you won’t, because you’ll be dead. I guess you’ll see briefly. Then be dead.”

Sokka sighed. This was getting stupid. “I mean I won’t, because you’ve been told not to put too many holes in me. Your words, remember?”

Mai looked put out. “Well you didn’t have to come right out and say it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a scrap of white fur drifting through the dust. Perfect. No, wait, not perfect, there was still something he had to do-

“So, uh, how’s Azula doing? It’s been a week or two.”

Mai raised an eyebrow, and peered over his shoulder, where Azula and her brother were screaming in each other’s faces while they tried to strangle each other.

Sokka buried his face in his hands. “Okay this is my life, I now have to go deal with that.”

Mai looked askance, apparently quite happy to let the heirs to the throne resolve things on their own. Sokka shook his head.

“Look, I  _ really _ can’t let them kill each other, so… you couldn’t give me a hand, could you?”

Mai gave him a slow look. “Okay just checking, you  _ do _ know she -and I, actually- are your enemies, right? She’s supposed to be killing you and you’re supposed to be killing her.”

Sokka winced. “Yeah I know, I’m working on that. Just… I’d call this a win if everyone walked away from this one? That’d be nice, I think.”

Mai relented. “Fine. What kind of help did you have in mind?”

“Well, if it’s not too much trouble, you couldn’t distract Zuko with a kick to the head or something, could you?”

Mai, for some reason, looked positively fractionally-less-miserable-than-before at the prospect.

* * *

 

When Mai burst onto the scene between them, Azula hadn’t initially thought too much of it- Mai was aware that she wasn’t to hurt Sokka, and if she wanted to vent her frustrations on Zuko, well, Azula wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to complain. But then-

Sokka forced himself into her field of vision, arms loose but ready by his side, legs tensed, ready to spring or run, eyes wide and brows curling with… worry?

“Are you… okay?” he asked, and Azula suddenly realised she was breathing hard. With practiced familiarity, she straightened her back, smoothed her hair out of her eyes, and gave him a small smile.

“Sokka. It’s been a while.”

* * *

 

Mai sighed. It wasn’t at all cathartic if he wasn’t going to fight back. With a sudden start, she wrenched him forward by his shirt, and leant forward until she could growl into his ear.

“The flying cow is landing right behind you. In two seconds I’m going to kick you and by really awful luck you are going to get pushed straight towards it. Get onto it, fly away. Find a better hiding spot next time.”

Zuko, mercifully, didn’t say anything. He turned and ran just like she’d told him to.

Hooray.

* * *

 

Azula wasn’t a fool. She could see the way this was going, and the chances of eliminating either the Avatar or Zuko at this point were slim. Oh well. A setback, but there would be other chances.

Sokka still looked on edge, even as he edged back towards the sky bison. Of course, she could always capture him again, but, as he’d pointed out, that would look increasingly suspicious.

There would be other chances. Less confrontational ones.

As he glanced over his shoulder, it looked as though he was struck by a thought. Turning back to her, he cleared his throat.

“Azula? Are… are you gonna be, you know,  _ okay _ ?”

Azula blinked.

“I mean… this isn’t gonna come back on you, right? Us getting away? You’re not gonna go back home to the full  _ you have failed me now suffer the consequences  _ treatment, right?”

Azula felt suddenly lost. Why would he-

No. Not worth it. She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me.  _ I  _ will be fine.”

He gave her a look that eloquently expressed how much he believed her, before turning tail and fleeing.

She sent a plume of fire in his vague direction, and if it was a little closer than she’d really intended, well. That’s what he got for asking annoying questions.


End file.
